Sunday, July 29, 2007

I received word from BGI that I have been accepted into their Sustainable MBA program. This is both exciting and a bit frightening. Over the past six years, I have been reading and learning about sustainable business and CSR, focusing mostly on the energy and technical aspects of these issues as opposed to the social justice elements (though they are inseparable in many instances). I've often longed for the opportunity to share my thoughts and suppressed passions about creating businesses that engage people, are profitable, and help restore the environment with like-minded individuals. I have pondered and written about sustainable business topics in this blog for the past two years as a place to put all these thoughts since there was no where else for them to go. I've explored various career options, from bicycle retailing and activism to a start-up renewable energy company. There's been (and still is) something missing, something I did not understand about businesses' operations and technicalities and the message about sustainability that I wanted to send. Will BGI provide what's missing?

At the heart of it, I would like to help create a sustainable future. The way to do that is different for everyone. As I shared with a friend and mentor in a conversation a few weeks ago, there are times that I feel like pulling up stakes and living off the grid, simply and with a shunning of what the modern world has become (Thoreau?). The problem with that (besides the fact that my wife would probably not go for it) is that I would be shirking my feeling of responsibility to the greater society for helping fix our broken economic system. Just because I go live in the woods and forage for mushrooms doesn't mean climate change will "go away". I want to be part of the conversation; the effort to engage the business world in the solutions to climate change.

The reality of committing to this program is that I'll have to reconnect with my scholarly self, a persona that left me and stayed at WPI in May of 1994. Managing my current work-load with the addition of a monthly trip to Seattle from the Boston area along with the regular school work will not be very pleasant, (one could argue that this whole thing is foolish due to the fact that I am flying across the country once a month to learn about sustainable business). I am fortunate that financially this is possible without much strain (right now). I'm nervous about my ability to handle all this in a way that makes my life livable for me and my wife. I suppose it's a pretty big unknown and something that I will manage as I go along.

If someone commits to something that they want to do, it's amazing what can be done to make it happen.